“A new study links a dramatic decline in drug overdose deaths with Rhode Island’s prison treatment program for opioid addiction.

The study by researchers from Brown University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that fatal overdoses among former inmates dropped more than 60 percent after the Rhode Island Department of Corrections began offering medications such as methadone and buprenorphine, known by its brand name Suboxone, to treat opioid addiction.

The study was published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry.”